Digitally represented video information comprises a relatively well-understood area of endeavor (for both still images and moving images). Unfortunately, fully Nyquist-compliant encoding of such information typically results in a quantity of data that often unduly challenges storage and/or transmission bandwidth availability in various settings. As a result, a number of coding methods and standards have been suggested to provide a reduced quantity of required encoding data. Many such video coding standards, including but not limited to H.263 and MPEG-4, are premised upon a block based hybrid differential pulse code modulation/motion compensation/discrete cosine transform coding algorithm.
Unfortunately, due to the lossy nature of such a coding approach (particularly at low bit rates) and the block based coding architecture, such an algorithm will typically produce blocking artifacts that are readily visible in the resultant decoded video image or sequence. Such blocking artifacts tend not only to be obvious but unnatural and annoying to many viewers.
Prior art solutions, to date, have tended to either require higher bit rates (and hence a greater quantity of data) and/or considerably increased architectural or computational complexity to provide acceptable-to-mildly-inferior visual content or relatively low complexity solutions that yield relatively inferior visual quality. When the latter becomes exemplified through additional hardware and/or considerably increased computational capacity, the required cost of the decoding platform tends to increase beyond a commercially acceptable price point. At the same time, many such solutions tend, never the less, to still produce an unacceptable level of blocking artifacts in the resultant video.
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